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Saturday, 27 August 2016

Ingredienti by Marcella Hazan (plus a carrot experiment)

A huge thank you to Beth Fish Reads
for steering me towards Ingredienti.This is a jewel of a book jam packed with
ideas – all based on an Italian approach to ingredients.

It is not a recipe book as such but armed with her
comments about ingredients you will be inspired to make many dishes yourself.

The first experiment I conducted as a result of reading
this book was with carrots.The results were not particularly memorable but
I think this was because I used baby carrots and cut them too thin.So I will be trying this again.

All you do is slice the carrots into rounds (try for an
even ¼ inch width).Braise the carrots
slowly in butter with a tablespoon of water added from time to time as
needed.The key is to cook them a long
time on a low heat.You don't turn the
carrots over at all.When the carrots
have wrinkled a bit and are a dark colour they are ready.

I think I worry with my stove the heat will be so high that the carrots would burn. I have the glass top and let me tell you, once it gets high it's hard to regulate the heat. I will try it though and I not use the baby carrots.Thanks for the tip.

"Baby carrots" are kind of a con job by industrial agriculture -- if you read the label it actually says "baby CUT carrots" which means they put full-size carrots through some kind of industrial lathe to make them that size & shape. These aren't nearly as fresh as carrots you peel and shape yourself!

My first Marcella Hazan cookbook is still pretty new -- I too find her an intriguing recipe source.